The plot bunnies are out of season Down Here, I'm afraid, but this little sod jumped out of a text book - not completely unconnected, given what he dictated. These alternative realities are just plain weird, if you ask me.

HELL-TV: The Faculty Channel – 'Collaboration'

When Sam showed up, Dean wasn't in a mood for niceties. "You're late, bitch."

"Students," Sam said by way of explanation, knowing that it could hardly be a surprise for his brother: it was usual for one of the Law faculty's most popular and sought after professors to be waylaid by his undergraduates on his way to lunch, when he usually met up with his brother at the campus eatery that was about halfway between the Law and Engineering faculties.

"Don't they get enough of your time in lectures and seminars?" complained Dean.

"It's important," Sam protested as he always did, "Especially their first year in, it can be a bit of a culture shock, and it's vital that they get with the program as soon as possible – they lose their confidence at that level, they'll never get it back. You know that, jerk."

"You'll spoil 'em," Dean warned through a mouth of hamburger, "You make yourself available for these improv tutorials, they'll expect it every time. Nobody's gonna be there to help 'em out once they fly the nest. Hang on, do baby sharks 'fly the nest'? Maybe weasels. Nobody's gonna be there to hold their hands once your baby weasels graduate and, uh, scurry the nest..."

"Right, says the guy who literally, actually, re-wrote the text book, because his students said they had trouble understanding the one that was prescribed," Sam rolled his eyes, "The guy who runs before- and after-hours study groups for anybody who's struggling in his courses, or anyone else's. Shouldn't you just let nature take its course? Anybody who's finding it tough going just isn't cut out for a career in engineering?"

"It's totally different," Dean waved his burger expressively, "They've gotta get through all that compulsory undergrad crap so they can get to the interestin' stuff."

"Right, totally different," humphed Sam. "What's got you so grumpy?"

"I'm not grumpy!" grumped Dean.

"You are, you know."

"I'm not!"

"You are."

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"Not!"

"Are."

"Not!"

"Are. Either you've got your man-period, or a meeting this afternoon."

"Fuck, don't remind me," Dean growled. "Well, at least it will let me find out who parked in Baby's spot."

"What?"

"Some asshole parked in my Baby's spot!" Dean repeated. "I got here this morning, and some asshole was in my Baby's space!"

Ah, thought Sam, That explains the grump. "Dean, there is no designated parking," Sam reminded him, "Not unless you want to go from being a Dean to being the Dean..."

"If I didn't know for a fact I'd choke on the paperwork and the meetings with time-wasting assholes in the first week, and murder my first bean-counter before the end of the calendar month, it'd almost be worth it," mused Dean, "Just to see the look on Zachariah's face. Smug bastard. Maybe I should express an interest, just to watch him squirm."

"Nobody would believe you," chuckled Sam.

"Hey, if I find the guy who parked in my spot and punch him in the face, can you sort it out for me?"

"The School of Engineering will do everything it can to hang on to you, I'm sure," Sam replied serenely. "They know that you could walk onto any campus in the country, or overseas for that matter, and be welcomed with inarticulate little noises of intellectual delight. Given your publication record and success with bringing in grants, if you ask nicely, I can probably convince them to take you back after you've served a custodial sentence. I'll have to check the faculty policy on employing staff with a criminal record of violent offences, though."

"Bitch." Dean consulted his watch and sighed. "Fuck, I'd better get going. Zachie-boy gives me a face like a cat's ass if I'm late. Not like I miss anything useful. Actually, he gives me a face like a cat's ass every time he sees me..."

"You might've missed notice of a visiting academic," Sam told him, "Maybe if you paid attention in meetings or read your departmental emails occasionally, you'd know the details of what's going on."

"Screw that," Dean humphed dismissively, "If it's somethin' really important, somebody will come and find me and tell me about it."

"For a start, you might have some idea of who took your precious parking space."

"Fuck, you sound like Ash. Stop it." brushing crumbs off himself, Dean stood up. "Hey, I'll call you later if I need bailing out."

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Some people thought that Professor Dean Winchester arrived at work every morning smiling because he loved his job. Some people thought that he arrived smiling because it annoyed the hell out of senior administrative staff, and he knew it. Some people thought that he arrived smiling because he probably got laid the previous night.

Any of those could be true at any given time, but a large part of why he arrived smiling was because he drove to work, and that meant time spent with his Baby.

On this particular day, though, he'd started off cranky, and had only become crankier.

On the walk back across campus, Dean passed the lot where he always parked his beloved Impala, in a space at the far end where he could see her from the window of his cluttered office. He was usually an early starter, so he always got that spot, and everybody knew it was his Baby's spot. Well, so he thought.

He scowled at the interloper, a dark blue right-hand drive coupe utility, sitting squat and malevolent.

In his Baby's spot.

He was still scowling as he made his way back to the room that was allegedly his office, although there was a lot more workshop equipment strewn around on every horizontal surface than the average academic would deploy. He was just beginning another assault on his email in-tray and trying to think up a not-blatantly-untrue excuse to skip the afternoon's meeting when a voice cut into his thoughts.

"Hey, Prof!"

He turned to see Ash, the most underrated and overcompetent technician ever to get the boot from MIT, grinning at him. "You still wanna throw those children off the dyno tomorrow? The ignition's ready to go, but the readout was fritzy last time, I think your latest Franken-engine risked blowing the ass out of it before it tore itself to pieces. Oh, and I got a name for ya."

"Huh?" Dean kicked his chair back.

"The intruder? Stole your parking space? You've been bitching about it all morning?" Ash reminded him. "I got a suspect. New arrival, visiting academic, all the way from sunny Queensland, Australia!" He grinned.

"Right hand drive," growled Dean.

"Yup. Looks like somebody couldn't bear to leave their car behind any more than you could."

"Great, so they'll understand when I tell 'em to get the fuck out of my spot. So, who do I have to punch to get my spot back?"

"One Ronnie Shepherd," replied Ash. "Zachie-boy seems quite excited about it. Wants his staff to make a good impression this afternoon."

"Right," Dean smiled slowly, turning back to the screen. "That would explain this email sayin' that I don't have to come if I've got somethin' real important goin' on in the lab that needs my full attention..."

"Leave it with me," Ash said airily, "I'll make it look like you never got to open it before you dutifully went off to your meeting."

Dean stood up. "You know, Sam does keep saying that I should make more of an effort to tune in to faculty business," he said with a grin, "I should make a start."

"Don't get blood on the carpet," Ash called after him cheerfully.

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Zachariah Godson looked around as the academic staff settled themselves into the small lecture room, and noted with satisfaction that there were a couple of absences. It wasn't like their newest arrival wouldn't be immersed in the real culture of the place – warts and Winchester and all – soon enough, but he believed that first impressions were important, and he wanted this to start well.

He stood up. "I think we'll begin," he announced in the slightly pompous tone he always used in meetings, "First item on the agenda is grant applications that need to be submitted before the end of semester..."

He was onto his third PowerPoint slide when the door banged open; he sighed inwardly.

"Don't mind me, Zach," the faculty's most popular, productive and infuriating professor offered him a cocky grin as he leaned back to put his boots on the table in front of him, "Just carry on... oh, you're just hassling us about paperwork again, so I haven't missed anything really important."

Clenching his teeth as a titter ran around the room, Zachariah carried on; as he slid down the bannister of life, he reflected briefly, Dean Winchester was one of the biggest and pointiest splinters. He was practised at ignoring the man's pointed sighs, watch checks and extravagant yawns in meetings. Otherwise, on this occasion, Dean was remarkably quiet, for which Zachariah was grateful, because a meeting with a well-structured agenda was one of the things he liked about his job.

The last slide flashed up. "And so, if there are any issues that we can deal with simply that staff would like to raise..."

"I got an issue." Dean sat up straight and glared at Zachariah. "Somebody parked in my spot this morning."

The Dean glared back at Dean. "Professor Winchester, I know that you are fully aware that there are no specifically assigned parking spaces for academic staff..."

"Maybe not officially," Dean's demeanour became grim. "But everybody knows I park my Baby there, so I can keep an eye on her. Except somebody didn't clue in the new guy." His gaze raked the room. "So, where are you, new guy? Ronnie Shepherd, wasn't it? Just introduce him, Zacho, so I can forgive him just once, and tell him to stay the hell out of my personal space."

Zachariah's mouth opened and shut a couple of times, then he found his voice. "Er, well, yes, if that's all, for those who haven't been introduced yet, I, er, yes, as you know, we have a visiting academic, and I, uh, if I could just introduce..."

"Veronica Shepherd." A woman who had been sitting a couple of seats away stood up and spoke in a thick Antipodean accent. She turned and offered Dean brilliant smile – or she could've been baring her teeth. "Though I've gone by 'Ronnie' since I was about two years old. I'm passingly familiar with your work, Professor Winchester," she said it the way someone might remark on the fact that a kindergartener had managed to shove a crayon up his own nose all by himself, "And I think that there may be some scope for productive collaboration..."

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"And then," Dean's voice quivered with outrage, "And then, she said, 'By the time I'm done here we'll have you on your way to your first Nobel'!"

"That's quite possibly the worst Australian accent I've ever heard," commented Jess as she put his plate in front of him. "And I've seen 'Pacific Rim' and 'The Great Escape'."

"I mean, who the fuck does Zachie-boy think he is?" Dean sailed on across Lake Outrage, powered by the wind gusting down from High Dudgeon. "He pulls in some complete unknown, and she says she's gonna fix my research, and..."

"Dean, she's a world leader in her field," Sam cut in – after his brother had called and launched into a tirade against the interloper who stole his parking space, he knew that it would continue when Dean came over for dinner, and he wanted to arm himself with some facts to counter his brother's rant. Yeah, he thought, Using rational argument and evidence on Dean when he's determined to be outraged is a long shot, but hope springs eternal. How the guy ever wrote anything that got past peer review for publication was some sort of miracle. "She has an extensive publication record in high impact journals. This is a woman who has introduced several completely new alloys and casting techniques to industry. And you keep complaining that current materials can't keep up with your genius – didn't you say that part of your latest design is still embedded in the test chamber because nobody can figure out how to remove it without pulling down the ceiling?"

"Plus, she looks like the east-facing end of a west-facing tank," Dean complained.

"Well, that right there is clearly enough reason to dislike her intensely," Jess rolled her eyes, familiar with her brother-in-law's capacity for melodramatics arising from any perceived insult to his car.

"She's going to be your colleague, like it or not," Sam said firmly, "So you don't have to like her, but you do have to get along with her in an appropriately professional manner."

"Spoken like a true lawyer," humphed Dean.

"Look, she brought her car with her," Jess pointed out, "She clearly loves it as much as you love yours, that's something you have in common."

"Had you stopped for a moment to consider just how productive a collaboration with a materials engineering specialist could be?" Sam suggested. "Lighter, stronger parts, with better tensile strength..."

"Stick to your writs, bitch," scowled Dean. "I don't tell you how to run your job."

"It could be fun to let you do that, just for a day," Sam mused. "Moot court would be entertaining. The bit where you demonstrated how to grab the defendant by the shirt and punch him until he tells you what he did with the cars he stole would be pretty damned educational."

"I wouldn't punch him!" Dean protested.

"No?"

"No. For car theft, I'd stab him."

"Of course."

"Or maybe string him up from the nearest street light."

"Ah."

"As a warning to others."

"Uh-huh."

"That stealing cars is not something a civilised community will tolerate."

"Is hanging people from lampposts civilised?"

"If you're doin' it to car thieves, it's not just civilised, it's an absolute necessity. It aint murder, it's vermin control."

"Right."

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The next morning he left home ten minutes earlier, but when Dean's Baby rumbled into the lot, he scowled.

The blue pick-up was parked in his space. Again.

The expression on his face would've frightened the most cynical and hardened of Sam's colleagues. As it was, when he stomped into the workshop, Ash just looked up and said, "Whoa, who stole your candy?"

"Nobody," Dean ground out, "That, that, that noob has stolen my parking spot again!"

"Uh, yeah," Ash turned back to the tangle of wiring hanging out of a console, "Said she wanted to get in early, make a start on getting her workshop set up, then there'll be paperwork, you know what that crap can be like..."

"Did you tell her to get the fuck out of my spot?" Dean demanded.

"I didn't know she was in your spot," Ash replied reasonably, completely familiar with his boss's capacity for unreasonable overreaction in matters pertaining to his car.

When Dean was working himself into a snit about a perceived wrong done to his car, he wasn't about to be derailed by reason. "I mean, what the fuck is a 'Maloo' anyway? It sounds like something out of The Jungle Book!"

"That was Baloo," Ash corrected equably. "Maloo is an indigenous Australian dialect word for 'thunder'."

"How the fuck do you know that?"

"I looked it up. Well, I didn't exactly look that up specifically. It was mentioned in the specs."

Dean turned a smouldering expression on his tech, who regarded him with unalarmed curiosity. "You know, some of your female students, if they came in here and saw you lookin' at me like that they'd go home and cry themselves to sleep..."

"Why were you lookin' up that thing's specs?" Dean growled as dangerously as a blueprinted V8.

"Well, I heard him come in this morning," Ash replied, poking at the wiring thoughtfully. "Man, he growls like a horny tiger..."

"Him?" Dean cut in. "Him? Him? He?"

"Oh, his name's Bruce," Ash smiled. "Your Baby is in good company – you know, he'll put out 570 Newton-metre at the crank under test conditions, which means..."

"Which means it's an over-engineered tank," Dean spat, "Which means it's meant to be hauling stuff on a construction site somewhere, which means it cannot compare to my Baby, because she's a classic, and it's STILL in my Baby's spot!"

"Well, to be fair, I think she was bringin' some stuff into the building..." Ash began.

"I don't care if she was jugglin' chainsaws and whistlin' Dixie!" Dean cut him off.

Ash considered that. "Wow," he said eventually, "That would be a hell of an act. Anybody who could do that would be wasted at university."

"I'm gonna sort this out right now," Dean stated firmly, Heading out of the workshop, "She was movin' into Hal's old lab, with the furnace, yeah?"

"Hey, chief, I don't know if it's a good idea to..." began Ash. He was too late; Dean was already striding along the corridor, looking neither left nor right until he reached the lab space that was coming back into use. He banged the door in without knocking.

"You in here, Shepherd?" he demanded without preamble, looking around at the space; it had been cleared, and there were instrument boxes and a couple of large tool kits moved in.

"Somebody there?" an accented voice called from the corridor. "Ah, Dean, isn't it? Him with the cool car. She is seriously cool, isn't she? Good, male muscle to help."

He turned to see the object of his ire standing in the doorway – she was pulling one of the electric department's electric trolley behind her. It was loaded with an assortment of items associated with metalworking, including an anvil. Without pausing, she picked up a box. "This thing won't make it through the door, I checked, so," she picked up a box, "Just on the bench there, ta."

"Yeah, my car is – ngh – seriously cool," Dean agreed, his knees sagging under the weight of the box.

"Is she the '67 or the '68?" asked Professor Shepherd eagerly, handing him another.

"1967," he snapped, "And – hgh – I want to talk to you about my car..."

"She's in the most beautiful condition," the woman noted, "I always seem to have trouble just keeping Bruce more or less clean. His cab is a disgrace, I'm afraid. Still smells of dog, although old Roo went to the Rainbow Bridge last year."

"Yeah, well I wanna – hmgh – talk to you about your car, too..."

"He's a working boy, of course," she sighed, "He's not subtle, but I need his grunt to cart my stuff around – I do like to tinker at home. You know how it is, samples, test plates – poor thing, his tray looks like a blacksmith's cast-offs pile most of the time. He goes through shocks the way other cars go through tyres."

"Well, you're gonna have to fi- ngh – AAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

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Sam walked into his brother's house to find him sitting on the sofa with his foot propped on a pillow. Dean began without preamble. "I want to sue that bitch," he snapped.

"Huh?" He put down the coffee and pie he'd picked up on the way, "What for?"

"For injuring me!" Dean yelled, "For breaking my foot!"

"Dean, it's not broken," Sam countered, "According to the clinic report, it's only bruised!"

"Badly bruised!" Dean yapped back, "She assaulted me!"

Sam tried not to roll his eyes. "Dean, you dropped an anvil on your foot."

"She handed it to me funny."

"She said you had hold of it, then dropped it."

"Well, it was too heavy! It was a fucking anvil, Sammy! Who the fuck carries an anvil around?"

"It's completely reasonable for a professor of metallurgy to have an anvil in her laboratory."

"It's not completely reasonable for her to drop it on my foot!"

"She didn't – you dropped it."

"Well what the fuck was she doin' handing it to me anyway?"

"She said she thought you'd come to help, Dean!" Sam replied in an exasperated tone. "Although in hindsight, I agree that her assumption that you were just behaving in a professional manner to assist a colleague was pretty damned optimistic on her part. She said... er..."

"What?" Dean's eyes narrowed as his brother visibly tried to back-pedal. "What did she say?"

"She said, uh," Sam hesitated, "She said... you looked like you could manage it."

"Well, she should've asked," Dean snarled.

"Yeah, right," Sam scoffed, "Because if that woman, whom you've decided to detest, had asked you, 'Oh, hey, Winchester, can you handle the weight of this anvil that I can pick up effortlessly, or is it too much for you?', you'd have considered the matter carefully and replied, 'Well, I don't have a lot of regular practice with lifting extremely heavy awkwardly shaped objects the way you obviously do, perhaps I'd better just give this one a miss in case it's too much', because your ego would definitely let you do that..."

"I can pick up heavy objects!" Dean protested. "I can pick up you!"

Sam gave his brother a level stare. "Dean, I hate to break this to you, but you remember how you said she looks like the east-facing end of a west-facing tank?"

"Yeah, she does."

"Well, frankly, her arms are bigger than yours, bro. I'm not sure I'd want to meet her in a dark alley."

"It's all her fault," Dean muttered, "I'm injured, and it's all her fault."

"Dean, she hasn't stopped apologising!" Sam huffed, "She did everything right! She got you an ice pack, and she took you straight to the campus clinic!"

"She put me on the electric trolley, Sam!" Dean yelped with horror. "She picked me up, she put me on that thing, and she towed me across the campus on the electric trolley!"

"Well you couldn't walk," Sam pointed out, "And it was the fastest way to get you there."

"People saw, Sam!" Dean howled with outraged embarrassment, "People saw me, sittin' on the bed of a bright orange electric trolley, bein' towed across the campus! It was humiliating!"

Sam let out a sigh, relieved in the knowledge that the only real damage had been done to his brother's ego. "Look, you've got the rest of the day off, just to rest your foot, and it'll be okay for you to get back to work in a day or two, you had your boots on and they took the brunt of it. Anyway," he couldn't help twisting the knife just a little, "It was only her small anvil. You should see the size of the other one..."

"Plus, my Baby is stranded, "Dean moaned pitifully, "She's stuck in the campus lot, where I can't keep an eye on her, you have to go and rescue my car, Sam..."

"Already in hand, bro," Sam assured him, carefully keeping his face straight, "I knew you'd want it back safely home, so I talked to Ash, and made arrangements. It should be home any minute now."

"She, Sam," Dean grumbled, subsiding somewhat as he reached for his coffee and cocked his head, listening for the familiar rumble of the Impala. "My Baby is a she."

"It won't get here any faster with you sitting there looking like a spaniel on point."

"Shut up, bitch."

Dean was halfway through his coffee when the growling gurgle of a well-maintained V8 came into earshot. "About time," he snapped, levering himself upright and picking up his crutches. "I gotta get the garage open."

He made it out the front door just as the Chevrolet classic pulled carefully into the driveway. "Leave it right there," he instructed, "I'll put her inside."

The driver's side door opened, and the driver got out. "Maybe Sam can do it," said Ronnie Shepherd, giving him an anxious smile as she tossed the keys to him. "You'll have no trouble driving her, what with the auto transmission, but you should be resting your foot..."

Dean gawped in horror at his car, then at his brother.

"She was so keen to help, bro," Sam said innocently, "And when I told her that you'd be worried about your car, well, she said that bringing it home to you would be the least she could do, so Ash got the spare keys, and..."

There was a moment when Dean's appalled gaze went from Sam, then to Ronnie, then back to Sam. He was, Sam realised, trying to decide which one of them he was angriest with.

He made a decision.

With an ululating yodel that could only be interpreted as a war cry, Dean launched himself off the top step at Ronnie.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" she screeched as they toppled to the ground.

"You asshole!" he bellowed as they grappled, "Who said you could drive my car!"

"Sam did!" she snapped back angrily as they rolled across the grass. "I was trying to help!"

"You broke my foot!"

"It's not broken!"

"It could've been!"

"I SAID I was SORRY!"

"You threw an anvil at me, you cow!"

"You dropped it, you dickhead!"

"YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE PARKED IN MY SPOT!"

"I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS YOUR FUCKING SPOT!"

"You fucking harpy!"

"You bloody drama queen!"

"DON'T YOU DARE PARK IN MY SPOT EVER AGAIN!"

"FUCK YOUR SPOT AND THE HORSE IT RODE IN ON!"

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Sam was able to separate them before they did any damage to each other. After ordering Dean back to the sofa, then parking the Impala in the garage, he gave Ronnie a lift back to the campus, agreeing with her that, yes, her brother was indeed an ungrateful unreasonable jerk.

That night, as he told Jess what had happened, she laughed out loud.

"Sounds like they're so alike, there are bound to be sparks," she chuckled.

"Yeah," he sighed. "When Alpha personalities collide. Why couldn't they just bond nice and quietly over a mutual interest in high performance cars?"

"Well, look on the bright side," she suggested, "If they don't kill each other by the end of the academic year, they could make a hell of a collaboration."

"Yeah, right, it was a hell of a 'collaboration' they had going in Dean's yard," Sam didn't sound convinced. "World Wrestling Collaboration. I think we can put it down to Dean's painkillers, but seriously, aren't they supposed to both be adults? I mean, I know he can be unreasonable about his car, but she was as bad as him! I'm not sure that launching yourself off your porch to attack a new workmate is necessarily a good way to start off a professional relationship."

"I'd pay to see Dean Godson's face if he found out," Jess mused, with just a touch of evil in her voice.

"Well, nobody saw," Sam said gloomily, "So I suggested that they pretend it didn't happen, and we will never speak of it again."

"If nothing else, their relationship will be interesting," Jess suggested, "Great collaborations have had worse beginnings."

"I'll be happy if they don't kill each other," Sam shrugged fatalistically. "I mean, I'm good, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't get Dean off a charge of blatant homicide."

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Sam didn't have to worry; it would turn out that Jess was right, as she liked to point out to him from time to time.

And, as Dean always liked to point out, it meant that his 'How I Met My Wife' story was more interesting that his little brother's.

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